Dustin Poirier says ‘disrespectful’ Eddie Alvarez turned down rematch ‘five times’

UFC on FOX 29’s Dustin Poirier delivered another standout performance against Justin Gaethje this past weekend to cement himself as a serious contender in the lightweight division.

‘The Diamond’ engaged in a back and forth brawl with ‘Highlight’ before finally landing a nasty counter left hand in the fourth round to stagger his opponent. Poirier swarmed Gaethje with a barrage of strikes and eventually got the TKO stoppage, calling for a title fight with newly-crowned lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in the post-fight interview.

Before being booked to fight Gaethje, however, Poirier claims that he was offered a rematch with Eddie Alvarez at UFC 223 but that ‘The Underground King’ turned it down.

“Me and Eddie were offered a rematch on that Brooklyn show that Tony and Khabib were on,” Poirier said on Monday’s edition of The MMA Hour, per MMA Fighting’s Dave Doyle. “And my management told me that pretty much they’re probably trying to book this fight because if they fall out, one of you are going to replace them. I accepted the fight. Eddie turned it down. This was months ago. We could have been on that card, Eddie’s ranked higher than me, he probably would have fought for the belt a couple weekends ago.”

According to Poirier, Alvarez turned down the rematch on roughly five separate occasions.

“It was offered a bunch of times, man,” he said. “There were a bunch of cards that they offered the fight on. I accepted every time they offered it, Eddie turned it down every time. I think it was five times.”

Poirier and Alvarez have unsettled business from their controversial lightweight matchup at UFC 211. Poirier looked to be gaining the advantage before Alvarez landed a series of unintentional illegal knees in the second round which led to the bout being ruled a No Contest.

The surging lightweight contender says Alvarez was ‘disrespectful’ in the aftermath and is certainly not going to turn down the opportunity for a rematch if the UFC don’t grant him a title shot against Khabib.

“The things that he said after our fight, just the way he acted, I tried to stand up for the man and tell the crowd stop booing him not a dirty fighter, have some respect for the man,” Poirier said. “… Just way he acted after that. Saying that I was trying to milk the knee, he tweeted me “are you finally off your stool yet’ just all kinds of stuff like that that was very disrespectful. This isn’t a bar fight. You don’t knee somebody in the head and expect the guy to just keep going like it didn’t hurt. He got me pretty good with that knee, and it could have changed the outcome of fight. This is a sport. There has to be some line drawn.”

“If I do not get the title shot next, it’s going to be Eddie.”